Blood Rubies: Are Your Dollars Propping Up Burma's Junta?

Burma's dictatorship is making a killing selling off natural gas and a wide variety of other valuable resources to China, India, Thailand, and the West—all to the tune of $6.7 billion a year. (The actual figure is much higher due to smuggling.) But while the junta lives large, average Burmese face malnutrition and even starvation. And many goods, including jade, teak, rice, and rubies, are produced with forced labor or child labor. Here's what's in the generals' store.

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Burma is awash in precious stones, including sapphires, spinels, peridots, and legendary "pigeon's blood" rubies. It supplies 90 percent of the world's rubies, a major source of income for the junta, whose official gem-trading firm reported $300 million in earnings in 2007.